Drawer slides for face frame cabinets

ABSTRACT

A drawer slide for a cabinet or the like includes: an elongate cabinet member; an elongate drawer member disposed substantially parallel to the cabinet member; and a slide mechanism mounted to the cabinet member and the drawer member that enables the drawer member to slide relative to the cabinet member between a rearward retracted position and a forward extended position. In the retracted position, the rear end of the cabinet member extends rearwardly between about ¾ and 1 inch farther than the rear end of the drawer member.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/636,002, filed Apr. 20, 2013, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed generally to furniture, and more particularly to cabinets with sliding drawers and trays.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Many cabinets, particularly those found in kitchens and offices, include drawers for storing various items. Often, drawers are mounted to the cabinet with hardware typically known as “drawer slides.” A drawer slide ordinarily includes an elongate member (typically known as a “drawer member” that is fixed to the drawer. Each drawer member slidably engages a second elongate member (typically known as a “cabinet member”) that is fixed to the walls of the cabinet. The drawer and cabinet members conventionally utilize a slide mechanism (often a small wheel or the like) that facilitates sliding motion. Some of such cabinets include multiple drawers, which can be disposed in vertically stacked fashion, side-by-side fashion, or both. An exemplary drawer slide for a cabinet is the MOOVIT® drawer slide, available from Hafele America Co., Archdale, N.C.

So-called “face frame” cabinets are particularly popular in American homes. A face frame cabinet comprises a typical box-shaped structure with two side walls, a rear wall and a floor as would be the case with a “frameless” cabinet, but a face frame cabinet also includes a frame that serves as a portion of the front wall of the cabinet. A typical face frame cabinet has cutout areas in the front wall that define areas for receiving drawers, doors or the like. The portions of the front wall that define these cutout areas often extend inwardly (i.e., are offset inwardly) from the side walls of the cabinet.

Many office cabinets utilize metal drawers. Conventionally, metal drawers (such as the MOOVIT® drawer system available from Hafele America, supra) have hollow side walls, and the drawer members mount in the gaps within these hollow side walls. The cabinet member of the drawer slide is attached to brackets that mount to the side wall of the cabinet; the brackets are outwardly offset somewhat from the cabinet member to enable the outer portion of the drawer side wall to slide past the bracket. However, the inward extension/offset of the front wall of a face frame cabinet is often sufficiently prominent to prevent mounting of the bracket on the side wall. As such, it would be desirable to provide a drawer slide configuration that can be mounted on a face frame cabinet.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a cutaway perspective view of a face frame cabinet and drawer slide according to embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the drawer slide of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is a side view of the rear portion of the drawer slide of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 is a side view of the front portion of the drawer slide of FIG. 2.

FIG. 5 is a front view of the drawer slide of FIG. 2.

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of the front portion of the drawer slide of FIG. 2 mounted in the cabinet of FIG. 1.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of the drawer slide of FIG. 2 mounted to the rear wall of the cabinet of FIG. 1 via a two-piece mounting bracket.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS OF THE INVENTION

The present invention will now be described more fully hereinafter, in which preferred embodiments of the invention are shown. This invention may, however, be embodied in different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. In the drawings, like numbers refer to like elements throughout. Thicknesses and dimensions of some components may be exaggerated for clarity.

Unless otherwise defined, all terms (including technical and scientific terms) used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. It will be further understood that terms, such as those defined in commonly used dictionaries, should be interpreted as having a meaning that is consistent with their meaning in the context of the relevant art and will not be interpreted in an idealized or overly formal sense unless expressly so defined herein.

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will be further understood that the terms “comprises” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groups thereof. As used herein the expression “and/or” includes any and all combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.

In addition, spatially relative terms, such as “under”, “below”, “lower”, “over”, “upper” and the like, may be used herein for ease of description to describe one element or feature's relationship to another element(s) or feature(s) as illustrated in the figures. It will be understood that the spatially relative terms are intended to encompass different orientations of the device in use or operation in addition to the orientation depicted in the figures. For example, if the device in the figures is turned over, elements described as “under” or “beneath” other elements or features would then be oriented “over” the other elements or features. Thus, the exemplary term “under” can encompass both an orientation of over and under. The device may be otherwise oriented (rotated 90 degrees or at other orientations) and the spatially relative descriptors used herein interpreted accordingly.

Well-known functions or constructions may not be described in detail for brevity and/or clarity.

Referring now to the figures, a face frame cabinet, designated broadly at 20, is shown in FIG. 1. The cabinet 20 includes opposed side walls 22 a (only one of which is shown in FIG. 1), a rear wall 24, a floor 26, and a front face frame 28 that includes a rectangular opening 28 a. A drawer slide 30 according to embodiments of the present invention is mounted in the cabinet 20.

Referring now to FIG. 2, the drawer slide 30 includes a stationary cabinet member 32 and a movable drawer member 34 that are substantially parallel with each other. A slide mechanism 36 of conventional construction is sandwiched between the cabinet member 32 and the drawer member 34 and enables the drawer member 34 to slide relative to the cabinet member 32 between a forward extended position and a rearward retracted position. The slide mechanism 36 may be of any number of configurations known to those of skill in this art and not need be described in detail herein.

As can be seen in FIGS. 2 and 3, the rear end of the cabinet member 32 extends rearwardly farther than does the rear end of the drawer member 34, even when the drawer member 34 has been slid to its rearwardmost retracted position as in FIG. 3; in some embodiments, the cabinet member 32 extends between about ¾ and 1 inch rearward of the drawer member 34.

Referring now to FIG. 4, a front mounting bracket 40 is fixed to the cabinet member 32. The front mounting bracket 40 includes an upward projection 42 with fastening holes 44. As can be seen in FIG. 5, the front mounting bracket 40 is laterally offset from the cabinet member 32 such that a gap 46 is formed therebetween. The gap 46 permits passage of the outer skin of the side wall of a metal drawer. FIG. 6 shows how the front mounting bracket 40 is mounted within the opening 28 a of the front face frame 28 to the inner surface thereof.

As can be seen in FIG. 7, the rear portion of the cabinet member 32 is mounted to the rear wall 24 of the cabinet 20 via a two-piece mounting bracket 50. One piece 52 of the mounting bracket 50 is mounted directly to the rear wall 22 via screws, dowels or the like (not shown). The second piece 54 of the mounting bracket 50 mates with the piece 52 via lips that fit within slots in the piece 52. The piece 54 is slidably adjustable relative to the piece 52 via a projection that is captured within a slot 53 on the piece 52. The interaction between the pieces 52 and 54 is embodied in the C-235 bracket available from Tenn-Tex Plastics, Inc, (Colfax, N.C.) and is described in some detail in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/967,410, filed Dec. 14, 2010, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety.

At its front end, the piece 54 has a hollow projection 56. The rear end of the cabinet member 32 is received within and captured by the projection 56. As such, the cabinet member 32 (and, in turn, the entire drawer slide 30 and any attached drawer) are mounted to the rear wall 24 of the cabinet 20. The position of the piece 54 can be adjusted side-to-side slightly in order to facilitate mounting of the drawer slide 30 and drawer.

The drawer slide configuration described herein can be employed to mount a drawer in a face frame cabinet irrespective of the amount of inward offset between the front face frame and the side wall of the cabinet. Thus, this drawer slide can be employed with any number of drawers, particularly metal drawers with hollow side walls.

The foregoing is illustrative of the present invention and is not to be construed as limiting thereof. Although exemplary embodiments of this invention have been described, those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that many modifications are possible in the exemplary embodiments without materially departing from the novel teachings and advantages of this invention. Accordingly, all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope of this invention as defined in the claims. The invention is defined by the following claims, with equivalents of the claims to be included therein. 

That which is claimed is:
 1. A drawer slide, comprising: an elongate cabinet member; an elongate drawer member disposed substantially parallel to the cabinet member; and a slide mechanism mounted to the cabinet member and the drawer member that enables the drawer member to slide relative to the cabinet member between a rearward retracted position and a forward extended position; wherein in the retracted position, the rear end of the cabinet member extends rearwardly between about ¾ and 1 inch farther than the rear end of the drawer member.
 2. A cabinet having opposed side walls, a rear wall, a floor, and a front face frame with a cutout area, wherein the cabinet member of the drawer slide of claim 1 is mounted to the rear wall and to the front face frame. 